Pandora was genuinely offended by his suspicion. “I’m serious!”

Yueyang acted as though he hadn’t heard, poured some water to wash his hands, wiped them carelessly against his clothes, and replied without looking up: “Didn’t you just say no one in Desire Valley can be trusted?”

Pandora looked like she genuinely wanted to bite him. “I’m the exception!”

Yueyang raised his hands in surrender, partly out of self-preservation, but maintained his personal position with diplomatic ambiguity: “Why do you suddenly have this strange idea?”

“What’s strange about falling in love?” The beautiful woman dead for a hundred thousand years was verging on exasperation.

“Not strange, then — just silly.”

“…” The beautiful woman was completely lost for words.

Taking advantage of Pandora’s indignation, Yueyang began working on his own survival.

He couldn’t just sit there and watch himself die without at least making an attempt. Even if nothing came of it, he had to try.

He summoned his Grimoire, took the small World in hand and directed it to convert all the resentment energy it had absorbed. The Nirvana Flames rose in crackling columns — the World already automatically converted resentment energy into chaotic energy over time, but the process was far too slow. Yueyang actively used Nirvana Fire to accelerate it.

Negative energy dissolved under Nirvana Flames like snow falling into boiling soup.

The resentment energy he had absorbed while tormenting the tree-people earlier was the easiest to purify — it broke down effortlessly into a negligible trace of pure, intent-free chaotic energy.

The new World consumed all energy — but even elemental energy, once taken in, was fully converted. Nothing except chaotic energy could exist within it permanently.

It reminded Yueyang of the Creation World Bead — the newly born divine artifact he still couldn’t actively control. Supreme and Night Empress had both told him that only when the Creation World Bead had opened a true heaven and earth within it, given birth to real life, would a World be complete. Like the summoned Grimoire advancing from Bronze to Silver to Gold and beyond, the Grimoire’s inner world could house and sustain its master — but its rules weren’t the master’s to set. The master had to operate within its existing Laws. Yueyang’s World was different. If he genuinely managed to create a true world from it, he would be that world’s god — its sole sovereign.

The Nirvana Flames burned on.

The resentment energy from the tree-people was converted quickly enough. But compared to the resentment saturating the rest of Desire Valley, what they had released was an ant beside an ocean.

The resentment they had emitted under torment — even combined with everything that every failed challenger had accumulated over ten thousand years — was the difference between a single tree and an entire forest. Yueyang could purify their share in a minute. Purifying the full ten thousand years of accumulated resentment from all the valley’s failures would take at minimum a month.

To purify the total resentment force of Desire Valley entirely, setting aside the Law backlash — time alone would require a year. Possibly more.

And the total time currently remaining to Yueyang was one day.

One day. What could be done in one day?

Could an amount of resentment energy as vast and boundless as the ocean be purified in one day?

Any fool knew the answer was no. But Yueyang didn’t stop. The Nirvana Flames kept burning, focused and steady, purifying the resentment energy within his body one portion at a time.

“Why are you being so stubborn about this?” Pandora asked, genuinely curious.

“Because you’re not me, and so you can’t understand me,” Yueyang replied with a smile.

Pandora caught his smile. She went still for a moment, seemingly turning something over in her mind, then frowned faintly. “Your smile looks a little like mine.”

Yueyang’s jaw dropped. “I’m a man. No matter how I smile, it cannot possibly look like yours.”

Pandora gave him an aggrieved look. “I meant the quality of it. Normally you have this flat expression that doesn’t do much for anyone — but when you genuinely smile, you emit some kind of mysterious energy that draws people in. Same as me. Though I’m considerably better at it — I attract people whether I’m smiling or crying, angry or happy. I don’t remember who said it, but I’m quite certain someone once told me that my charm was inexhaustible.”

Yueyang scratched his head. “So by your logic, I should be flattered?”

“Aren’t you?” Pandora looked puzzled.

“I have about half a day left to live and there are no beautiful women around,” Yueyang said, spreading his hands. “How much use is a good smile doing me right now?”

“There’s no one here — couldn’t you smile for me?”

“Smiling a lot gets tiring. And it causes facial cramps.”

“You—”

She swore she was never going to acknowledge this young man again. Ten minutes later, Pandora found herself watching him still doing what she had declared a pointless exercise.

There was nothing to be done. She tossed her earlier resolution to the wind.

With this infuriating, impossible person, Pandora found herself peculiarly prone to softening — whether he was right or wrong, she simply couldn’t help it. She drifted a little closer, examined the Nirvana Flames curling around his arms, then retreated slightly with a degree of wariness. “I didn’t expect you to have Nirvana Flames. Even so — to purify Desire Valley’s full resentment energy, even with Nirvana Flames, it would take several months at minimum.”

“Several months isn’t enough,” Yueyang corrected. “Several years, minimum. And that’s assuming the Law backlash doesn’t interfere.”

Pandora frowned. “Then why are you doing something you know is futile?”

Yueyang laughed. “What else am I supposed to do? I still have the better part of a day before I die. Just sitting here waiting to die is boring.”

“…”

Another half hour passed. Pandora could no longer contain herself. “If we’re waiting anyway, why not talk to me? You’re busy, but watching from the side with nothing to do is terribly dull.” Not waiting for him to refuse, she pressed on: “Tell me about yourself. I’m genuinely curious — what kind of place, what kind of parents, would produce someone like you? You’re completely unlike anyone else who’s ever come through here.”

“I’m not actually some rare species,” Yueyang said with a cold sweat. “Stop looking at me like I’m an exhibit.”

“What’s a rare species?”

“Something that likes little monsters and does… things with them in public.”

“What does things with them mean?”

“That’s a deep and complex topic. I’ve only ever heard it connected to something about mountains and a particular flower — the actual truth of it I’m not entirely clear on myself.”

“Let’s change the subject then. Do you have someone you like?”

“Quite a few.”

“Quite a few? You have many women? I wouldn’t have guessed. You seem like someone who could even resist my charm.”

“The thing is, some women’s charm is something I don’t want to resist. Other women’s charm is something I don’t dare resist. It’s complicated to explain. Love is complicated. Some people with too much free time and too few real problems claim it’s a chemical reaction. Others say it’s arranged across past lives. Either way it’s murky and unclear — except for one thing you can say with certainty: you like her, and she likes you.” The transmigrated young man offered this rare honest reflection on the topic. Perhaps a case of as death approaches, words become true.

“Is that how it works? I think I’m starting to understand a little.” The great beauty who had been dead for a hundred thousand years without ever getting the chance to fall in love furrowed her delicate brows.

“You understand nothing about it.” Yueyang filed her firmly under the category of romantic incompetent.

“If you weren’t going to die, would you fall in love with me?”

“Falling in love with a natural airhead like you sounds like no fun whatsoever. Knocking you over, though — that I could consider.”

“Knocking me over? What does that mean?”

“It’s what a man and a woman do when they…”

“Do when they…?”

“You’re not a natural airhead. You’re naturally blind.” The transmigrated young man lost his patience entirely.

“Oh, I understand now. You mean men and women mating? That’s absolutely revolting — Desire Valley is full of it, it’s nauseating. I don’t know why I’m imprisoned here, but everything about this place disgusts me. I hate all of it!” The moment Pandora flared up, her resentment resonated immediately with the entire fabric of the valley’s Laws. Yueyang felt it clearly — every time she became angry, a surge of negative resentment energy generated and fused seamlessly into the surrounding Law energy. Her own mind was completely pure, but the negative energy filling every corner of Desire Valley was pushing the whole place toward an indescribable state of destruction.

Pandora’s anger was formidable — but it passed quickly.

In a moment, she was back to her natural state of oblivious calm.

She murmured with faint dejection: “My head was severed. I don’t have a body anymore.”

Yueyang studied her and felt increasingly certain that Pandora’s essence carried a unique destructive energy — not direct destruction like the Wheel of Apocalypse, but something invisible, subtle, a slow erosion. It was this unconsciously radiated destructive energy that converted to resentment and merged with Desire Valley’s Laws.

And through her will, it was connected tightly to him.

Which meant — the reason he couldn’t leave wasn’t about the Laws at all. It was because she, on some unconscious level, didn’t want him to leave. The entire force of Desire Valley was responding to her wishes without her even realizing it — operating according to her will. She had simply never used this power before, had never noticed it. Until he arrived and caught her attention, and the unconscious impulse to keep him had activated. And the invisible destructive energy she radiated was pouring into him through the same channels he used to absorb energy. His World, which consumed all energy, and the destructive energy she radiated — they were locked together like opposite poles of a magnet, pulling toward each other with no way to disengage.

If neither of them had been quite so unusual, perhaps her head would never have been severed. And he almost certainly wouldn’t be facing death.

“Do you remember who severed your head?” Yueyang asked.

“I don’t remember.” Pandora’s mood darkened further.

“Not having a body isn’t so bad,” Yueyang offered in consolation. “I have a friend who lost her entire body once. I used Nirvana Flames to bring her back, and she became a being of living flame — her memories were gone too. You’re considerably better off than she was.”

“I didn’t find it particularly distressing before. Ten thousand years passed, and I mostly slept — dreaming occasionally of the past, mostly just resting. Life wasn’t bad. But then I met you, and suddenly I feel terribly reluctant. You’re about to die, and I’ll be alone again. You’re nothing like anyone who’s ever come through here. A fair number of challengers have noticed me. Some spoke to me. Some passed straight by without a word. None of them mattered to me in the slightest — their coming and going left no impression at all. But you’re different. If you die, there’ll be no one to talk to. This is the first time I’ve ever genuinely been happy. Can you not die?”

Pandora’s words grew sadder and sadder as she spoke, and tears finally streaked down her face.

“Well — there’s still about half a day,” Yueyang said, at something of a loss. He badly wanted to point out that the reason he was in this predicament in the first place was her unconscious refusal to let him leave.

“I don’t want half a day. I want you to stay forever.” Pandora was well and truly crying now.

“Some things aren’t yours to have just because you want them,” Yueyang said quietly.

“Why not? Why can’t I have what I want? Why am I the goddess of misfortune that everyone flees from — why can’t I be the goddess of fortune that everyone loves? Why? Why was my head severed? Why was I imprisoned in this filthy valley? I hate this. I hate all of you!” Pandora lost all control. Something deeply buried in her mind surfaced with a rush and sent her spiraling. Her enraged scream tore through the sky. Every Laws in Desire Valley shuddered. Boundless destructive energy swept invisibly across the entire world.

Yueyang watched the World in front of him balloon at a terrifying rate — resentment energy flooding into it like a burst dam, himself becoming the target of an attack, a vessel for the grief of Pandora’s ten thousand years of accumulated resentment now pouring out of a mind that had lost its reason.

His Nirvana Flames were nowhere near fast enough to purify what was coming.

At this rate — half a day until death.

That casual, throwaway prophecy had been right after all.